From: John W Burgeson <burgytwo@juno.com>
> >It is read as it makes sense without the need to try to
> >reinterpret the Bible to fit the assumptions of mythological
>>Naturalism."
> That's a new term -- "mythological naturalism."

Not a new term. It is simply stating that Naturalism is mythology. It's
assumptions have no factual basis. The unprovable assumptions are:
1. matter/energy/motion originated (and continually operates) according to
natural laws by which they interact that is inherent within them.
2. Nature is all there is and has ever been or ever will be.

> I take it that when one accepts the very peculiar YEC interpretation of
> Genesis, that every piece of observational and experimental data he/she
> knows about must necessarily be shoehorned into that interpretation, and
> when this is not done, one is practicing this "mythological naturalism."

The very same thing is done within the mythology of Naturalism. It is the
world view/ paradigm within which every piece of observational and
experimental data is interpreted. That world view interpretations are in
conflict with the Creationary Catastrophist interpretation of the very same
data.

> The problem is, Allen, that when one tries to shoehorn all that data into
> a YEC interpretation, "the shoe does not fit." Gosse, in OMPHALOS, comes
> as close as anyone, IMHO, even though many here will take issue with even
> this much. To do so, he must necessarily posit "virtual time," which
> leads many to accuse him of seeing God as a great deceiver.

All data is interpreted within (not shoehorned into) either Naturalism or
Creationary Catastrophism. The problem has been that Naturalistic
interpretations have been the de fecato truth of sciences for so long that
many cannot think outside the box of Naturalism.

> Genesis was written, so the scholars say, about 600 BC, most probably
> from earlier legends told around the campfire.

Genesis was written long before 600 BC. The literary structure of Genesis
closely parallels the literary structure of the era of cuneiform writing on
clay tablets. This was before and during the time traditionally apply to
when Moses lived. By 600 BC, the art of cuneiform writing was lost in dusty
ruins for hundreds of years. It has only been since the advent of modern
archaeology that the similarities has been rediscovered.

> And that message is NOT scientific knowledge.

The Bible is not a scientific tome, but it does record observations from
which we can draw conclusions concerning the state of the world during the
Flood Catastrophe for instance. It does not matter precisely what the
ancient writers of the Bible may have believed about the natural world
around them. Their observations would be largely independent of their
personal interpretations of the information. We may take the observations
and look at them within our world view and propose interpretations based
upon what we now know about the world today.